OUR NAVY.

Kaikoura Star, Volume LXI, Issue 43, 5 June 1941, Page 3

OUR NAVY.

REMOVAL OF CRETE TROOPS. A MAGNIFICENT JOB. LONDON, June 2. About 15,000 British and Imperial troops have been withdrawn from Crete to Egypt, according to a communique issued yesterday by the WaiOffice announcing the evacuation of the island. It adds: “It must be admitted that our losses have been severe.” The German losses, it said, were enormous. The Daily Express says it is unofficially estimated that 18,000 Germans were killed in 'Crete and 600 German aeroplanes destroyed. Grim, blood-stained troops, many with their wounds tied up as best they could, continue to fill in the picture of the most gruelling and most intense battle of the war. One said: “Even Dunkirk and the battlefields of Greece were nothing compared with this show.” A German communique sflys: “The mopping up of the rest of the British troops in Crete is being continued. So far we have taken 10,000 British and Greek prisoners.” An Italian communique says that the Italian forces on the island met the Germans on Saturday. June 3. The latest unofficial estimates given by the commanders engaged in the operations in Crete are that “we had 20,000 troops in Crete, and a good three-quarters of them were evacuated.” At least 20,000 Germans were drowned round Crete without even sighting the battle. While everyone debates the importance of Crete, military authorities in Cairo say that one thing is certain: the Germans will not be long in launching a new attack. Suez is a magnet, and the Axis plans to get there in a hurry. The British are busily preparing for the next move on the grim, fateful chessboard, as survivors from Crete are still reaching friendly shores. Destroyers carried out the bulk of the evacuation. They crossed the Mediterranean loaded to the topmost pompom station with fit and wounded soldiers, unloaded, and put out to sea immediately to run figain the gauntlet of countless dive-bombers. The Australian war correspondent says high officers estimate that for every Imperial casualty in battle 15 to 20 Germans fell. An outstanding feature of the men’s arrival in Egypt was that 55 per cent still carried their rifles of Bren guns.